writing toolkit

"This adult male. This person on earth. Ten billion nerve cells. Ten pints of blood pumped by ten..."

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:42:57 -0500

“

This adult male. This person on earth.
Ten billion nerve cells. Ten pints of blood
pumped by ten ounces of heart.
This object took three billion years to emerge.

He first took the shape of a small boy.
The boy would lean his head on his aunt’s knees.
Where is that boy. Where are those knees.
The little boy got big. Those were the days.
These mirrors are cruel and smooth asphalt.
Yesterday he ran over a cat. Yes, not a bad idea.
The cat was saved from this age’s hell.
A girl in a car checked him out.
No, her knees weren’t what he’s looking for.
Anyway he just wants to lie in the sand and breathe.
He has nothing in common with the world.
He feels like a handle broken off a jug,
but the jug doesn’t know it’s broken and keeps going.
It’s amazing. Someone’s still willing to work.
The house gets built. The doorknob has been carved.
The tree is grafted. The circus will go on.
The whole won’t go to pieces, although it’s made of them.
Thick and heavy as glue sunt lacrimae rerum.
But that’s only background, incidental.
Within him, there’s awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy.

God of humor, do something about him, OK?
God of humor, do something about him today.

”

- Wislawa Szymborska, A FILM from the SIXTIES

Photo

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:37:05 -0500

"Once upon a time there was a child who was willful and did not do what his mother wanted. For this..."

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:35:51 -0500

“

Once upon a time there was a child who was willful and did not do what his mother wanted. For this reason God was displeased with him and caused him to become ill, and no doctor could help him, and in a short time he lay on his deathbed.

He was lowered into a grave and covered with earth, but his little arm suddenly came forth and reached up, and it didn’t help when they put it back in and put fresh earth over it, for the little arm always came out again. So the mother herself had to go to the grave and beat the little arm with a switch, and as soon as she had done that, it withdrew, and the child finally came to rest beneath the earth.

”

- The Brothers Grimm, The Willful Child

"Things to worry about: Worry about courage Worry about cleanliness Worry about efficiency Worry..."

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:29:33 -0500

“

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about:

What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:

(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

With dearest love,

Daddy

”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, from a letter to his daughter

"When they asked some old Roman philosopher or other how he wanted to die, he said he would open his..."

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:02:51 -0400

“When they asked some old Roman philosopher or other how he wanted to die, he said he would open his veins in a warm bath. I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank to sleep under a surface gaudy as poppies.
But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenceless that I couldn’t do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn’t that skin or the blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at.”

- Sylvia Plath

"A cross section of how we are, George and I. My blood, my skin, some air, his skin, his blood...."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:37:28 -0400

“

A cross section of how we are, George and I. My blood, my skin, some air, his skin, his blood. Sometimes: blood, skin, air, wall, air, skin, blood. During sex: blood, skin, skin, blood. As close as we can get. Seeking closer. But that final, perfect closeness? Blood, blood? That’s not a place we can get, no matter how deep we pull. We strain against the boundaries of skin.

Except sometimes, when we fight. My knuckle into his lip, just the right way. The gouge in his elbow knocking off the scabs on my ear. Blood, blood.

We get there

”

- Abbey Mei Otis, Blood,Blood
(via itgetshardtotell)

"This is a song for the genius child. Sing it softly, for the song is wild. Sing it softly as ever..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:37:22 -0400

“

This is a song for the genius child.
Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can -
Lest the song get out of hand.

Nobody loves a genius child.

Can you love an eagle,
Tame or wild?
Can you love an eagle,
Wild or tame?
Can you love a monster
Of frightening name?

Nobody loves a genius child.

Kill him - and let his soul run wild.

”

- Langston Hughes, Genius Child (via itgetshardtotell)

itgetshardtotell: “As I get older, everything in me is dwarfed...

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:37:02 -0400

itgetshardtotell:

“As I get older, everything in me is dwarfed aside from my greed, bitterness and racism. But I am getting better at playing that damn, fucking guitar.”

- Devendra Banhart

"Living things and unliving things are exchanging properties. The drive of unliving things is..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:36:54 -0400

““Living things and unliving things are exchanging properties. The drive of unliving things is stronger than that of living things. The living should never be used to serve the purposes of the dead. But the dead should, if possible, serve the purposes of the living.””

- Phillip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly (via itgetshardtotell)

"You may have created my past and screwed up my present, but you have no control over my future."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:36:36 -0400

“You may have created my past and screwed up my present, but you have no control over my future.”

- David Klass, You Don’t Know Me (via itgetshardtotell)

Photo

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:36:20 -0400

"That night I met you I wrote: it is possible i have imagined my entire life."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:35:39 -0400

“That night I met you I wrote: it is possible i have imagined my entire life.”

- Sarah Manguso (via itgetshardtotell)

"…a game we once played. We pretend we’re fairies. I’m a girl fairy and my name is Lauralee, you’re a..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:35:06 -0400

“…a game we once played. We pretend we’re fairies. I’m a girl fairy and my name is Lauralee, you’re a boy fairy and your name is Titalee. Pretend when we’re fairies we fight each other.
And I say, ‘Stop hitting me or I’ll die!’
And you hit me again.
And I say, ‘Now I have to die.’
And you say, ‘But I’ll miss you.’
And I’ll say, ‘But I have to.
And you’ll have to wait a million years to see me again, and I’ll be put in a box, and all I’ll need is a tiny glass of water and lots of tiny pieces of pizza and the box will have wings like an airplane.’
And you ask, ‘Where will it take you?’
‘Home,’ I say.”

- Synecdoche, New York (2008)

"When you looked down his throat you could see the universe."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:34:49 -0400

“When you looked down his throat you could see the universe.”

- The Secret Garden (1993)

"Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:34:42 -0400

“Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.”

- Revelations 13:11 (via itgetshardtotell)

"Eventually someone is going to break your heart. Eventually something you love is going to be taken..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:34:08 -0400

“Eventually someone is going to break your heart. Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking ‘I am falling to the floor crying’ but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it—you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well and when you’re having sex with your next lover on this very floor they will also notice that you didn’t paint it very well and they will think less of you for it. And then you think ‘Is that sentence too long?’ And then you have to hold the contradictions of sobbing uncontrollably and wondering about grammar in your head at the same time. I think if you are true to the entire experience, not just the sad part, you don’t risk sentimentality because you’re not overloading the experience with fake, melodramatic feeling.
I also hear that whispering helps.”

- Richard Siken (via itgetshardtotell)

Phillip K Dick, from A Scanner Darkly

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:33:20 -0400

Phillip K Dick, from A Scanner Darkly

"I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air – ..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:32:46 -0400

“

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –

”

- Emily Dickinson, I Heard a Fly Buzz (465)

"(There is a knock at the door. SETH goes to answer it. Enter HERALD LOOMIS and his eleven-year-old..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:31:56 -0400

“(There is a knock at the door. SETH goes to answer it. Enter HERALD LOOMIS and his eleven-year-old daughter, ZONIA. HERALD LOOMIS is thirty-two years old. He is at times possessed. A man driven not by the hellhounds that seemingly bray at his heels, but by is search for a world that speaks to something about himself. He is unable to harmonize the forces that swirl around him, and seeks to recreate the world into one that contains his image. He wears a hat and a long wool coat.)”

- August Wilson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (via itgetshardtotell)

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults..."

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:30:12 -0400

“

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

”

- Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse (via itgetshardtotell)